Zero Hedge: 301 AD was a big year for the Roman Empire.
That was the year that, amid spiraling inflation, Emperor Diocletian issued his Edict on Maximum Prices, essentially fixing prices of just about everything across the Roman Empire.
The price of wheat, a day labor’s wages, a quart of olive oil, transportation rates– everything was established by the Emperor’s edict, and enforced under penalty of death.
Diocletian’s edict infamously didn’t work, and the empire plunged into even more severe inflation.
The other big event of 301 AD was the introduction of the solidus gold coin, roughly 4.5 grams of nearly pure gold.
And while the Romans had a history of debasing their other coins, like the silver denarius and sesterce, the government actually did a pretty good job maintaining the value and purity of the gold solidus.
Even hundreds of years later, after the western empire in Rome had fallen to the barbarians, and imperial power was concentrated in Byzantium, the gold solidus was still approximately as pure as it was in the early 300s.
That’s an extraordinary track record for currency stability. Confidence in the gold solidus was so high, in fact, that various tribes and kingdoms around the world used the coin for trade and savings.
This became a source of pride for the Byzantine Empire; Justinian I, who ruled in the mid 500s, stated that the solidus was “accepted everywhere from end to end of the Earth,” and that it was “admired by all men in all kingdoms, because no kingdom has a currency that can be compared to it.”
It wasn’t until the mid 11th century, more than seven centuries after the introduction of the solidus, that an Emperor began to debase the currency. Read More …
Opinion: The US has been debasing its currency since President Richard Nixon decoupled the US dollar from gold. Nixon’s action severed the last link between the dollar and gold, transforming the dollar into pure fiat currency.
Since the “Nixon shock” of 1971, the dollar’s value — and the average American’s living standard — has continuously declined, while income inequality and the size, scope, and cost of government have risen.
A major cause of the current price inflation is the unprecedented money creation, quantitative easing (QE), the Federal Reserve has engaged in since the 2008 market meltdown. When you combine QE with previously unheard of massive government spending, inflation arrives.
Article:
“History, however, is very clear on this point: wealth and power shift. Reserve currencies change. And it would be foolish to assume that this time is different.
Reserve currencies hold their status because the rest of the world has confidence– confidence in the soundness of the currency, confidence in the power and prestige of the country that issues it.
But let’s be honest: the rest of the world is probably not brimming with confidence in the United States right now.”
They’re looking at this shameful, disgraceful catastrophe in Afghanistan and wondering, “Is this seriously the world’s dominant superpower?”
Bible students who read articles like this will know that a global economic crisis (Rev. 6:5-6) will one day plunge the world into hyperinflation causing a shake-up in global leadership. One man will rise to power whom the Apostle John simply called the ‘beast’, Rev. 13:1.
